Barbers-to-be train at Quincy school

It’s not all clip, clip and snip, snip at the Massachusetts School of Barbering in Quincy Center. Students don’t just spend time in the classroom, they refine their skills by working on customers at the school’s 30 barber chairs.

It’s not all clip, clip and snip, snip at the Massachusetts School of Barbering in Quincy Center. The school, which has been in the city since 1986, gives students 1,000 hours of instruction. In addition to spending time in the classroom, students refine their skills by working on customers at the school’s 30 barber chairs.

Each day, dozens of students work on the hair of people who come to the school for cut-rate coiffures.

Students come from all over the state to attend the school; some come from other states.

Some students have hopes of opening their own shops. Others plan on working for someone else.

Nick Goba, 19, of Hanover, who used to cut his friends’ hair while he was a freshman in high school, has completed 700 hours of his training.

“Probably everyone’s dream here is to own their own shop,” he said while cutting the hair of classmate Connor Gutterson, 21, of Taunton.

“Beats working outside in construction,” Gutterson said as he used his smartphone to show Goba a photo of the hairstyle he wanted.

Alan Conragan and his cousin Chuck Russian are the school’s directors.

It takes students about 8½ months to complete their studies and get state certification, which allows them to become apprentices, Alan Conragen said. After a year and a half of apprenticing, they can become “master barbers” and have their own shops.